Robert Moses, the "New York Approach," and Finding the People Lincoln Center Displaced
New York City’s “approach” to slum clearance (a.k.a. urban renewal) differed from every other city, during the 1950s. (See Joel Schwartz, The New York Approach.) In other places, a municipal agency was responsible for acquiring condemned properties, managing the site, relocating residents, and, finally, demolishing structures. In New York City, Robert Moses privatized the process, transferring those responsibilities to the project “sponsors,” who planned to redevelop the cleared sites. Exposés revealing how sponsors mistreated site residents led to the end of this practice.
As a result of the Moses approach to slum clearance, it is more difficult for historians to identify the people forced from their homes, because private entities rather than public repositories control access to this information. In the case of the Lincoln Center, the relevant records are closed to researchers for one hundred years.
Protecting personal information is Lincoln Center’s justification. But there are alternative policies that would protect displacees’ rights while facilitating research — research that we believe to be in the public interest.
Who was forced to move? Where did they go? How were they harmed? As time proceeds, these questions become more difficult to answer — displacees die and family memories fade. Perhaps that’s the point of Lincoln Center’s policy? After all, even the federal Census becomes public after 72 years.